[via Before It's News]

The critical question is: At what level will the American public be comfortable with Google sharing information with NSA?

- Google to enlist NSA to help it ward off cyberattacks

[via Bruce Schneier]

Wake me up when this nightmare is over… wait, that won’t work…

Bolliger, who is head of forensic pathology at the University of Bern, went to the store and picked up 10 half-liter bottles of Feldschlösschen Original — his nation’s most popular brew. He emptied six of them, left four full and, using a precisely calibrated energy-measuring device, started dropping a steel ball on the bottles from various heights. Bolliger’s conclusion: Full bottles shatter at 30 joules, empties at 40, meaning both are capable of cracking open your skull. But empties are a third sturdier.

- Empty Beer Bottles Make Better Weapons

via Dangerous Minds

“I have been hacked; taking evasive maneuvers. Much apology, my friends,” wrote Rocky Barbanica, a producer for Rackspace Hosting, an Internet storage firm, in one such note.

Mr. Barbanica sent that out last month after realizing he had sent messages to 250 Twitter followers with a link and the sentence, “Are you in this picture?” If they clicked, their Twitter accounts were similarly commandeered.

“I took it personally, which I shouldn’t have, but that’s the natural feeling. It’s insulting,” he said.

- Viruses That Leave Victims Red in the Facebook
by Brad Stone for NY Times
2009-12-13

Hijacked communications are the tip of the iceberg – wait’ll you see how the underlying data gets used…

“Toda vez que eles tentam [invadir], a gente corrige”, disse o operador.

“A rede operativa é blindada, separada da internet e operada via comando de voz”, segundo informou a entidade, negando que o apagão que atingiu 18 estados na terça-feira (10) tenha sido causado por ação de hackers.

- Hackers invadiram site, diz ONS
Juliana Carpanez e Altieres Rohr
2009-11-16

Aprender Português é divertido!

From the time it started blowing money on abstinence-only education in 1981 (under the Reagan Administration) the US Government has spent from $4,000,000 (1982) to $214,300,000 (2008) every year funding this prohibitive lesson – and it adds up quickly (moreso with Bush policy funneling more taxpayer money in and finding ways to issue grants to religious organizations).

In the last thirty years abstinence-only education has cost US taxpayers almost two billion dollars – despite a lack of supporting scientific evidence and all indications that abstinence-only education causes more harm than good…

Abstinence education came of age in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It began with the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, which dedicated an annual $50 million in Title V abstinence-education grants. The money had to be spent on programs that teach “abstinence from sexual activity outside marriage as the expected standard for all school-age children.” When George W. Bush took office he created a new program: Community Based Abstinence Education, or CBAE, grants. While only states could take the Title V funds, CBAE grants went directly to community groups, including faith-based organizations. During the Bush administration, funding for abstinence education more than doubled, from $80 million in 2001 to $200 million in 2007, according to figures from the Congressional Budget Office.

- The Future of Abstinence
by Sarah Kliff for NewsWeek.com
2009-10-27

While it is obvious that the organization (as with any bureaucratically-established entity) has money to blow on quixotic pursuits and self-promotion, there’s a dearth of hard science to corroborate its effectiveness… so what of the research papers which the Center for Research and Evaluation on Abstinence Education cites?

Successful abstinence maintenance was only possible among those subjects who were not already sexually experienced at study enrollment. Baseline scores regarding intercourse and general life risks already evident by seventh grade suggest that urban, school-based primary prevention interventions must occur before adolescence. Early adolescence interventions need to include both abstinence and safer sex messages.

- Keeping middle school students abstinent: outcomes of a primary prevention intervention
Marilyn J Aten, Ph.D., R.N., David M Siegel, M.D. (M.P.H.), Maisha Enaharo (M.P.H.), Peggy Auinger, M.S.
2002-01-23

This “supporting evidence” contradicts the abstinence-only aim of the CBAE grants…

Currently, there are three federal programs dedicated to funding abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. Each requires eligible grantees to censor critical information that teens need to make healthy and responsible life decisions.

To receive funds under any of the federal programs, grantees must offer curricula that have as their “exclusive purpose” teaching the benefits of abstinence. In addition, recipients of abstinence-only-until-marriage dollars may not advocate contraceptive use or teach contraceptive methods except to emphasize their failure rates.

- Helping Teens Make Healthy and Responsible Decisions about Sex
ACLU 2008-06-16

Because what you don’t know … can’t help you.

Let’s turn back to the CBAE site for some guidance:

Peer-Reviewed Literature Reviews and Meta-Analyses

Coming soon.

- CBAE Research Papers
2009-11-18

Shocking!

I have a suggestion for your Meta-Analyses section, CBAE (that holds for your parent organization, too – the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services): Impacts of Four Title V, Section 510 Abstinence Education Programs submitted April, 2007 to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by Mathematica Policy Research.

So, why not publish that paper you’ve been holding onto for the last two years?

Is it because the programs have a statistically-insignificant effect?

$200m a year…
so what?

Abstinence-only education spending accounted for approximately 0.00007% of the 2008 US federal budget.

Do the lessons of this hamfisted and nepotistic program extend beyond the programs scaring teenagers with deliberate misinformation?

I’ll bet you a purity ring that they do.

Answer: Rapidly.

The Geography of Jobs map [via Sources and Methods] demonstrates succinctly.

… but do you ever wonder how economic catastrophes occur..?

… Labs would be prevented from doing research on high-risk agents if the lab is in violation of security requirements. It would also allow the federal government to suspend federal funding for such labs.

Further, the amendment requires the Homeland Security Secretary to notify all agencies providing funding for high-risk research which labs have been suspended.

- Amendment Designed To Increase Security Measures At High-Risk Labs Passes
RTTNews 2009-10-28

via Federation of American Scientists Strategic Security Blog

… and that is a good thing, because those rare but major emergencies happen more often than they should.

Next step: Stop tempting fate by recreating 1918 flu and keeping samples of historical pathogens…

But wouldn’t it be fun to study the infection pattern?

It’s not so often that I have an opportunity to dine on the sweet flesh of corvus corvidae (no accident though I remain human and I do sometimes fail to apply that in dubiis non est agendum maxim) – so here goes: the most likely suspect in the recent killing of a Seattle police officer is likely an assassin and not a murderer in the traditional sense of the words:

We now know that Monfort was deeply interested in government and social justice issues—like police misconduct, jury nullification, and the loss of rights under the Patriot Act—but it’s still unclear what allegedly drove Monfort to make the leap from being a loner college student interested in policing and justice to, as police have said, a “terrorist.”

So far, it sounds quite a bit like Monfort saw himself as an anti-government patriot akin to Timothy McVeigh. The American flags left at the two scenes, his alleged manifesto written to police, and the numerous college paper articles and school projects all seem to indicate that Monfort believed our government, or at least law enforcement system, was fundamentally flawed or broken.

In the coming weeks we’ll find out more about Monfort, what made him tick, and hopefully, what (allegedly) pushed him over the edge.

- Anatomy of a Murder
by Jonah Spangenthal-Lee
2009-11-09 18:35

It will be intriguing to see where the trial of Monfort goes – obviously the guy had a couple screws loose if he was leaving calling cards and blowing up police cars (the calling card link was neglected in news reports until now).

So my initial statement implicating a bad-cop-kills-good-cop murder can safely be considered incorrect (and, based on a dearth of information, it should have come with a real caveat). The evidence is heavily stacked against Monfort (which is not to say it would be impossible to frame the guy, but the likelihood that he would be framed is extremely low: no sufficient police record to draw the attention of those who would be in a position to frame him, et cetera).

Still, Seattle has no lack of dirty and brutal cops.

You’re probably not reading this, if your name happens to be Walter Guinn Cooper … why?

Because Mr. Cooper is dead.

(Okay, that’s conjecture – but it seems only likely that a guy whose various safe deposit box contents would happen to be found buried in a creekbed in Arkansas wouldn’t be around to enjoy the aforementioned safe deposit box contents any longer)

“It’s just kind of strange that we find it buried in a creek bed here,” Mikles said. “We had to use a back hoe to move it. It’s not something one or even two are going to be able to pick up.”

Mikles said many of the legal documents have deteriorated but considers the findings a part of history.

“I can find where it says warranty deed up there was stamped in March of 1892,” Mikles said.

The last name Castleberry is on one of the tattered papers. A stamp shows that it was filed in neighboring Logan County.

- Police Work To Solve Bank Vault Mystery
4029TV.com 2009-11-03

What does the almighty internet have to say about Mr. Cooper? The most likely reference I found was (oddly enough) a deleted reference at SpiroMound.com (a site about some various ancient relics buried in Oklahoma by the Arkansas River).

Fortuitously preserved in the Google Cache (must’ve been deleted recently?):

Cherry, James
1985 Transcript of an interview with Walter Guinn Cooper, April 3.

- The Spiro Mound: A Photo Essay (References)
Deleted page pulled from Google Cache 2009-11-05

If, by some chance, I am horribly mistaken, my apologies to you Mr. Cooper… perhaps you could explain the mystery of your buried belongings and deleted citation?

Spiro was a ceremonial center and mortuary location. The complex was in use from approximately 950 A.D. until 1450 A.D. The Brown mound and the Plaza were the location of the ceremonial activities, at least for the first phases of the site’s life. The ceremonies were connected with the celebration of the lives of the dead elite and their ultimate interment in The Spiro Mound mortuary area. In the later stages of its life, the site became a vacant ceremonial center with few or no permanent living facilities. It should be noted that the Spiro people did not depend on agriculture and that maize was a minor part of their diet.

- History of the Spiro Mound

Apropos.

T+00:20:00 Update:

Found some more material recently pulled from spiromound.com:

Photograph 7 shows them digging in the third cone from the north. W. Guinn Cooper is shown in this picture. In his interview with Dr. James Cherry, Cooper discusses the discovery of what probably is this blade: “and there was a fellow, I was trying to think of his name. I had his picture…he was a professor…He used to come down here all the time…He’s interested in this stuff and he bought one of those long thin, well you’d call it a knife probably…Yeh, it wasn’t flint, I don’t know what it was…but anyhow the old preacher broke it, I remember when he broke it and I pulled it out.” This would account for the fact the piece was broken. Although Dr. Bell said the diggers wouldn’t let outsiders know exactly where items were found, it is safe to assume that this piece came from the third cone from the north in the area shown in Photographs 7 and 11.

- Spiro Mound Artifact Database: Blades / Knives
Deleted page pulled from Google Cache 2009-11-05

T+00:33:00 Update:

Confirmed dead:

50. Guinn Cooper obituary, n.d., unknown newspaper, clipping in Correspondence, Inquiries and Appreciative Letters Folder, RKSM; Walter Guinn Cooper to Joy, November 13, 1974, Spiro Folder, RKSM.

- Looting Spiro Mounds: an
American King Tut’s tomb
by David La Vere
2007

T+01:00:02 Update:

So why the buried safe deposit boxes? Apparently Mr. Cooper had a collection of his own…

In 1967, Guinn Cooper donated his entire collection of Spiro artifacts to the Poteau Chamber of Commerce. The chamber was not really sure what to do with these hundreds of extremely valuable points, engraved shell cups, copper pieces, pottery, beads, and such.

. . .

As the value of Spiro goods skyrocketed, larger museums increased their security and tracking measures. Now, smaller museums became targets. And often the thefts were not by bands of high-tech thieves but were inside jobs done by people who just coveted the artifacts or the money they could bring.

In September or October 1991, officials at the Robert S. Kerr Museum in Poteau noticed several Spiro pieces donated by Guinn Cooper missing from their collection. These included almost ninety arrow points and knives; a large number of beads, as well as a complete necklace of stone beads; a stone ornamental pipe; a couple of engraved conch shells; a shell breastplate; and a by-then-famous “long-nosed God maskette.”

- Looting Spiro Mounds: an
American King Tut’s tomb
by David La Vere
2007

… a collection he elected to give away. The man was a member of a team of belated grave-robbers; granted, they were struggling to make ends meet during the Great Depression, but they were also clued in to a profitable scheme and I would be surprised if they’d stopped at the Spiro Mounds.

Is it possible that he had staked a claim to land he believed to contain more of the same?

What did the Arkansas safe deposit boxes contain before they were buried?

Apparently the Masonic Order and Egyptian mythology are involved, as well.

Is this some horrible manifestation of history-as-rewritten by Dan Brown ..?

Try to ignore the obvious plot holes – it’ll all make sense in the end…